Ten Commandments

The Decalogue commonly known as the Ten Commandments is usually analysed as a text. Within the Hebrew Bible however it is depicted as a monument- an artifact embedded in rituals that a community uses to define itself. Indeed the phraseology visual representations and ritual practices of contemporary monuments used to describe the Ten Commandments imbue them with authority. In this volume Timothy Hogue presents a new translation commentary and literary analysis of the Decalogue through a comparative study of the commandments with inscribed monuments in the ancient Levant. Drawing on archaeological and art historical studies of monumentality he grounds the Decalogue's composition and redaction in the material culture and political history of ancient Israel and ancient West Asia. Presenting a new inner-biblical reception history of the text Hogue's book also provides a new model for dating biblical texts that is based on archaeological and historical evidence rather than purely literary critical methods.